It turns out that potential renovations to Fuquay-Varina High School don't cost $82 million after all.

Joe Bryan, chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, has complained at the last two joint meetings about the $82 million price tag for Fuquay-Varina High. He's questioned why the renovation would cost so much.

School staff now say that the figure is actually $63 million. Joe Desormeaux, assistant superintendent for facilities, told school board members last week that "we found an error in our program on the cost per square foot that did a significant change as you can see with Fuquay-Varina."

The Fuquay-Varina High renovation isn't on the short list of recommended projects for the fall bond issue. The bond list will be discussed at Thursday's joint meeting of the school board and commissioners.

Wake County school board member John Tedesco is warning he might not support the fall school bond issue.

Tedesco gave the warning during Tuesday's school board work session as he complained about this $925 million proposed list of projects. He's upset that the list doesn't include funding for renovations at two Garner schools and only a small amount to start work on Garner High School.

"Excuse me if this is not a priority list of bonds from somebody who's been a vocal advocate for our bond thus far, saying we need it, telling others that we need it extensively," Tedesco said. "This is not one that I could support."

The Wake County school board and the Wake County commissioners may have agreed in principle to a school construction dollar amount, but they're still split on how to spend the money.

As noted in today's article, both boards agreed Thursday to target $900 million for the amount with the details to come later about what would be funded. As Thursday's discussion showed, the issue of how much to spend on renovations vs. new schools is a sticking point between the two boards.

Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners, resumed Thursday the questions he had at the last meeting about why some renovations have such high dollar amounts.

The lobbying and negotiating over what projects to include in the next Wake County school construction bond referendum is already in progress.

As noted in today's article, the scenarios presented Wednesday range from $609 million to $2.3 billion. It's understood that the $2.3 billion, which lays out all the district's needs, isn't going to happen.

The question is which projects to still fund in a reduced bond amount.

More to come later, but Wake County school administrators laid out today five different school bond scenarios ranging from $609 million to $2.3 billion.

* Scenario 1: $2.3 billion for 32 new schools, rebuild 12 existing schools, major renovations at 16 schools and other projects.
* Scenario 2: $1.1 billion for 15 new schools, rebuild six schools, start planning on rebuilds of two schools.
* Scenario 2A: $1.1 billion for 15 new schools, rebuild six schools, start rebuilds on two schools, major renovations at three schools.

UPDATE

Click here to view the handouts for the scenarios.

Click here to view a handout of the description of the rebuilds/whole campus renovations.

In what's become a perennial issue on school bond issues, Wake County commissioners have questions about why school renovation projects cost so much money.

During last week's joint meeting, Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners, asked why this school district needs list. includes an $82.4 million renovation for Fuquay-Varina High School. He also asked why they're proposing more renovations for Cary High School at $37.6 million and at Enloe High School for $30.9 million.

Bryan noted that the proposed cost for Fuquay-Varina's renovation is more than the cost for building Rolesville High and the new West Apex High.

UPDATE

I've corrected the link in the post to view the presentation from school staff on the district's facility needs.

Should the Wake County school system spend as much as $90 million in the next school construction bond issue on technology?

At Wednesday's school board facilities committee meeting, staff outlined proposals for $54 million to establish a "classroom baseline" and $36 million in network systems. Click h here for the network needs.

A lot of the discussion was around the classroom technology piece, where the goal in the next bond is to reach a ratio of one device (laptop, iPad or tablet) for every three students. This would involve 50,000 devices for $25 million.

Would you be more willing to approve a Wake County school bond issue it it included $18.1 million in funding for security upgrades at schools?

As noted in today's article, school facilities staff will present to the school board's facilities committee today a proposal for between $7.1 million and $18.1 million in security measures. It's part of a presentation on items that could be included in the next capital improvement program.

The proposal would fund things such as more surveillance cameras, an electronic door locking system, a centralized electronic visitor sign-in system, an entrance buzzer system for all elementary schools and a centralized public address system.

Speaking of new school needs, the Wake County school board will have to make a decision soon on which ones to jumpstart.

Wake has enough uncommitted design money to start work on either two new elementary schools or one new middle school. The schools where the design money will be allocated will open sooner than other schools that would be funded out of the next bond issue.

The board previously agreed to provide design funds to try to accelerate Abbotts Creek and Scotts Ridge elementary schools. Joe Desormeaux, assistant superintendent for facilities, said it hasn't been determined which two other new elementary schools would be targeted for additional designs funds if that option is chosen by the board.

Wake County school administrators are pointing to the link between student assignment and the number of new schools that are needed in the next school construction bond issue.

Joe Desormeaux, assistant superintendent for facilities, told school board members last week that revised projections show that 13 to 26 new schools are needed by the 2016-17 school year to keep up with growth.

If Wake sticks to its current practice of only partially filling new schools when they open, Desormeaux said they'll need closer to the high end of the 26 schools. If Wake opens the schools at full capacity and reduces grandfathering, it would reduce the number of new schools but not make families happy.